1. Field of the Invention
The present invention refers to a method and an apparatus for producing a fish product including head, body and tail from a non-decapitated fish defining a plane of symmetry and having intestines, gills, back fins with fin holders and skeleton essentially including a vertebral column, ribs, back spokes and belly spokes, which method and apparatus comprise a sequence of processing steps or tools and guides, respectively, for removing essentially completely the skeleton and at least the largest portion of the gills.
2. Prior Art
A fish product of the aforementioned type is e.g. marketed as "boneless rainbow trout". This product is manufactured manually and represents a boneless fillet including head and tail, which forms a practically ideal starting product for various preparations of meals. The processing required to this end has to be extremely precise and thus involves high expenditure. Furthermore, a relatively high loss in yield in fish meat occurs, on an average, during the processing. This, of course, is disadvantageous and caused by the fact that the cuts for cutting out of the skeleton have to be performed rather "boldly" in order to guarantee that the product may be termed "boneless".
On the other hand, German Patent 509 733 describes a deboning method performed by machining with regard to decapitated fish, i.e. fish rumps which, during such processing, are conveyed with their tail end leading. In this known method the vertebral column is removed from the fish rump together with the ribs, whereas the back spokes are cut through and thus remain in the fish rump.